You choose a name, then big business says it’s theirs

Oliver Kent-Braham and his twin brother Alexander named their business Marshmallow, but faced a challenge from the insurance giant Marsh. The intellectual property office ruled in the brothers’ favourjack hill/the times

There are countless things for founders to worry about when trying to get a start-up off the ground, finance, production, marketing, supply and staffing levels to name but a few. For Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham, that list stretched to engaging in a lengthy and bizarre row about the semantics of the word “marshmallow”.

Having decided to name their company — an insurance provider for drivers who were born overseas, after the marshmallow — they were dismayed when Marsh, the 113-year-old international insurance giant, got in touch to demand they change their name before the London-based start-up had even begun trading.

Marsh opposed Marshmallow’s trademark registration on the basis that the two names could be “easily confused by members of the public”. Despite the huge imbalance…